News in brief

Istanbul
Turkey's courts are to decide whether a speech by US linguist Noam Chomsky in the southeastern city of Diyarbakyžr, monitored by local police, broke the law by supporting a Kurdish state and education in the Kurdish language.

Seoul
Up to 30 South Korean university students who occupied the office of the American Chamber of Commerce in protest against President George W. Bush's visit were arrested.

Oxford
St Antony's College, Oxford, has sent a protest letter to Chinese president Jiang Zemin on behalf of imprisoned scholar Xu Zerong, a former student who has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for endangering state security and the "illegal publication" of more than 60,000 books and periodicals.

Salt Lake City
Griffith University student of leisure management and speed skater Steven Bradbury has become Australia's first Winter Olympic gold medallist.

Chisinau
Huge crowds protested in the Moldovan capital at government plans to introduce a new history syllabus in universities and schools. For a decade, students have been taught the history of Romania. The proposed history would cover only the era when Moldova was an integral part of the USSR and the ten years since independence.

Kuala Lumpur
Work on the Selangor campus of Britain's first university in Malaysia, the University of Nottingham in Malaysia, starts next month. Unim moves to the campus in 2004 with 2,500 students.